How to acces in read/write a checked out document ?

Today, I had to explain to a Site Collection Admin how I unlock a file on his SharePoint 2007 site.

The file was checked out by a user that was no more working in his team.

This post resume the steps I explain to the end-user :

1-      Check that the Icon is in "check out"

2-      Two options:

Ø  Check In : make your changes visible to your colleagues, and create a new version (if the versioning option is set)

Ø  Discard Check Out : will discard changes, and the main advantage, is to avoid making new versions of the document when not changes are made into the file.

Complete info can be found on the Microsoft Support Page

That's all folks 

How to hide an option into the mySite Edit Profile

Today, I was asked to hide an option from the "Edit Profile" section of your mySite.

So, in Central Administration of your service Farm, under the Application Management > Service Applications, select the "Manage Service Applications" link.

Then, select your User Profile Service Application, and select People>Manage Policies link.

Edit the needed policy, and uncheck the "Show on the Edit Details page" box.

That's all folks

MOSS 2007 : Data changes are lost after Check in of .accdb file

Let's describe the user issue :

User had a database file stored on our SharePoint 2007 environment. (Database into another Database… Uh ? )

The process to reproduce the user's issue :

-          Put the .accdb in Check out

-          Open the .accdb file

-          Making the changes

-          Saving the file

-          Check in to allow other users to work with the .accdb file

Error got by the user :

Little analysis of the error message : seems that the user had selected an incorrect option while opening the file.

So, I made the same process as the user, but I found a little box that I didn't checked.

-          In Sharepoint, do the Check out to avoid having multiple users modifying the file at the same moment

In the "You are about to check out" popup windows, pay attention that the checked box "Use my local drafts folder" is NOT checked

 Open the file

 In the "Save A local Copy" popup windows, simply click on the Save button..
It is mandatory, as Access had to open the file as if it is on your computer, without any restriction.

 

-          We are using Office 2010, and at the top of the opened database, you can see those 2 yellow warning bar :

-          Clicking on the "Save to SharePoint Site" button from the Yellow bar will open the "Save to SharePoint" popup windows, showing that the file will be correctly saved to the Site, as expected.

-          System is showing several message windows, and then, we can find the modified database file on SharePoint.

-          Now, let's do the Check in of the document.

 

 

-          Now, the document is Check in without any error.

That's all folks

Unable to Upload files larger than 28Mb : Error 404

For an unknown reason, I'm unable to upload files larger than 28Mb on a Sharepoint Site, and I got an "Error 404 Page" after 5 to 10 seconds, depending of the file's size.

But the strange thing, is that I'm able to upload the same file (same extension, size) on another Site and located on another Web App.

I tested with multiple upload, without any success for the larger file :

Next step was to check the SharePoint configuration, and specially concerning the erroneous Web App.

-          Maximum Upload Size is correctly set

-          Web Page Security Validation expiration time is also correctly set.

Now, it remains the IIS, ASP to be checked.

To do so, I googled a little bit and after a little cleaning, I was able to point 3 specific Microsoft documents:

-          http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925083

-          http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942074
-          http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925083

The first had the exact problem that I was facing, but their solution gave me error after an IISReset.

And the second document, gave me the correct file to change :

I simply added the "<requestLimits maxAllowedContentLenght="52428800" />" under the 
"<requestFiltering>" node:

  















 The third documents is requesting to add a parameter into the "web.config" files in two places on the server :

     - First path : in the 12-Hive folder, under Template => Layouts

 

     - Second path : in inetpub, in the Web App folder

 

A IISReset later, let's test again :

Et voilà !

The 2 largest files are now on my SharePoint Site:

Nb1: Do not forget to change also on all your WFE servers.
Nb2: The manipulation was completely successfull in our Test Environment, but not in Production...
  ==>> Update : all is working.
  Issue was due because I forgot the add "<requestLimits maxAllowedContentLenght="52428800" />" parameter to the "applicationHost.config" file on the 2 WFE Servers (it was done on the CA Server only in Production)

That's all folks

Move Sites from one Content Database to another

When a Content DB contains too many sites, we can script the migration process of the selected sites to be moved to another Content DB.

The purpose, is to reduce the number of sites from the DataBase1_site, and balance them between the 2 other DB, leaving Sharepoint the ability to distribute the sites on the DB's.

Step 1 :

First things first, the DataBase1_site Maximum Number of Sites is set to a lower limit (in this case, I divided by 2 the Warning and Number  - my choice)

This will leave Sharepoint to restore the sites to the lowest populated DB ( DataBase3_site in my case)

Step 2 :

Then, it's time to give some work to the SQL Team :

-          Full backup of the DataBase1_site as it is a customer requirement (and this time, I was happy to have it done !!! )

When backup is completed, I've locked all the sites that will be moved.

Then, time for SQL Team to do a differential backup of the DataBase1_site.

Step 3 :

I've written a .bat file with all those commands (according to the explanations of my SharePoint Guru), for each site that will be moved :

stsadm -o backup -url "http://<URL>/sites/<SiteToMove>" -filename "<SiteToMove>.bak"

stsadm -o setsitelock -url "http://<URL>/sites/<SiteToMove>" -lock none

stsadm -o deletesite -url "http:// <URL>/sites/<SiteToMove>"

stsadm -o restore -url "http:// <URL>/sites/POL_CONINO" -filename "<SiteToMove>.bak"

stsadm -o setsitelock -url "http:// <URL>/sites/<SiteToMove>" -lock none

1-      Backup:               Local backup to restore the site into to new DataBase

2-      SetSiteLock:      Unlock the site, or the DeleteSite will not be possible

3-      DeleteSite:        Delete the site from DataBase1_site

4-      Restore:              Restore the deleted site into the allowed DataBase

5-      SetSiteLock:      Unlock the site, as the restore was made from the backup of a locked site

If all is correctly done, job is finish.

But …. In case of problem … as the backup command didn't succeed for any reason, the restore of the full DB is needed, and must be done on SQL side.

Step 4 :

Now, the restore of the DB is done by SQL Team, and we must add the Content DB to Sharepoint, then create a backup of the lost site.

I've wrote a little script that will do all step, with a little "pause" to check the restore of the lost site, before deleting the Backup DB from Sharepoint.

As the Backup DB contains exactly the same sites as the production DB, a new ID must be set to the Backup DB using the stsadm.exe parameter :  –assignnewdatabaseid .

You can find all the details to the Microsoft TechNet Site:

stsadm -o addcontentdb -url http://backupsitemove -assignnewdatabaseid -databasename xxxxxxxxxx1_Site -databaseserver SQLServer\InstanceName

stsadm -o backup -url http://backupsitemove/sites/<SiteName> -filename "<BackupPath>\Backup\<SiteName>.BAK"

stsadm -o restore -url http://<Destination _URL>/sites/<SiteName> -filename "<BackupPath>\Backup\<SiteName>.BAK"

pause

stsadm -o deletesite -url http://backupsitemove/sites/<SiteName>

stsadm -o unextendvs -url http://backupsitemove -deletecontent -deleteiissites

pause

The last command will delete the Database from SharePoint AND from the SQL Server if the used account is set as dbo of the Content DB.

Step 5 :

A full Cralw had to be done to refresh the Search engine.

Step 6 :

Take a deep breath, a coffee and be proud of your job done without losing any user's data.

Nb:  for the little story, I've done all this recovery for one site… that had its last modified document/folder set to 2009 …

That's all folks

Opening Excel files in SharePoint and get a "Microsoft Office Excel Secutity Notice" warning windows message

The root cause of this warning message is created by Office 2007 when you have a hyperlink in your excel document.

The purpose is to warn the user about the possible risk if the hyperlink was inserted by unsafe program.

ð  It is not Sharepoint related.

Error message :

Let's Google first the error message :

This kind of message is not related to SharePoint, but with Office 2007.

This is the link on Microsoft Web Site : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925757/en-us

It is clearly written :

Hope it'll help.

That's all folks

How To Create a New Alert in SharePoint ?

Following the request of a SharePoint user, please find the way to create an Alert in the Shared Documents section of your site. (This can also be applied to other part of your SharePoint site.)

The user want to receive a mail each time that somebody had added a new file into the "Shared Documents" folder.

First things first, select the appropriate folder where you need to add the Alert :

 Now, select the "Alert Me" option under the "Actions" drop-down menu :

 Now, this is THE Alert page, where you'll set all the needed options such as :

• Alert Title : will personate your alert, and will appears in the Alert mails
• Send Alerts To : select the users that must receive the conrecrned alert.
• click on the "browser" button (the opened book)
• type in the name in the "find" field :

• click on the magnifier glass icon
• double-click on the correct name
• click on the "Add" button, the when all done, click on "Ok"

 Now, up to you to select the options for the "Change Type", "Send Alerts for These Changes" and "When to Send Alerts" sections.
I've selected the requested options :

• New items are added
• Anything changes
• Send e-mail immediately

Now, lets see the received mail Alert when a file is added by a user on the SharePoint site :

That's all folks

How To Delete a Discussion Board?

Discussions are same as lists, so they are manageable by the same way.


- Select the concerned Discussion Board to delete :

   















- Under the drop-down menu "Settings", select "Discussion Board Settings".

- Then select the appropriate option : "Delete the Discussion Board"

That's all folks